When I was in elementary school we always had a school Halloween carnival. It was awesome. Every classroom had a booth and decorated. There were always a couple of rooms that were devoted to selling things like a general store for Halloween items and a bakery for home baked goods that were donated. One of the upper classrooms was always a haunted house, there was a photo room with various backgrounds where you could have photos made. One room was for a talent show and many participated. There was a huge chili dinner in the cafeteria. The entire area neighborhood turned out for it and it was great.
In junior high school we always had a huge all school party for Halloween with a spooky movie shown. I remember the first one was Edgar A. Poe's The Tell Tale Heart. I still remember being so scared and enthralled with the story.
When we reached 9th grade we got to have a Halloween party with a dance. It was really the highlight of the year.
When my kids were little they always had Halloween parties and got to dress up in costumes. Then they started making them bring the costumes instead of wearing them all day. They got to put them on for the afternoon parties. Today, there are no costumes allowed, but they still have parties and Halloween treats. My 7 year old niece (who lives with me) will have a pumpkin parade on the 30th. They are to decorate or carve a pumpkin and will parade around the halls of the school. They are encouraged to bring a wagon on something to pull the pumpkin in.
When I was teaching, the small school district always had a huge Halloween carnival in the gym with booths, cake walks, games, etc. Even the high school clubs and organizations took part in this as a fund raiser. My yearbook staff used to hold the haunted house in the basement tornado shelter of one of the buildings. The entry was from the outside. It was always musty and damp and was a great background for this. We always borrowed a casket from an area funeral home. It was the one they used to transport bodies when they had to be moved from another town. It was only pine, but looked great and did have the satin lining. The kids always loved it and it was so great.
For several years we made the rooms with cardboard walls. A local food plant donated the cardboard. It was so hard to keep the walls upright and when it was rainy, they fell. Finally, we got smart and put hooks in the ceiling and bought the large black plastic rolls and hung it like large sheets. It was much better and didn't fall during the night. It was light tight and eeire. We had numerous rooms including a chain saw room, the casket room, Psycho room, etc. As the movies came and went, we added the current theme from the hockey mask, Jason, etc. I rarely had to buy masks, because there was always someone in the school with one we could use. We just let the owner be a part of the spook house that year. I had some of the best vampires, witches and ghouls---all without having to pay for the makeup.
One year, we went to a local pipe manufacturing plant and got them to donate a huge PVC type pipe and cut it to the length we needed to fit from the top of the stairs opening down to the bottom of the basement. We used it as an entrance. You had to slide into the house and were immediately greeted by you guide at the bottom. We put several old sets of springs (cut out of an old mattress and covered with padded topping. It was very disorienting when you hit the bottom and tried to stand up and walk. It was a hoot!
We always had lines wrapped around the school and were told that our haunted house was as good as the big ones in the two larger adjoining towns.
It was an awesome fund raiser and so much fun.
They still have the carnival, but it is now a Fall Festival and NO haunted house!
I miss those days. I really didn't want to do the haunted house becuase it wasn't my thing. But, after starting it, I did love it and we had to be better and bigger every year. I just never carried this through to my home life until this year and I am finally having my first costume party and haunt.
